Drawing on the folk influences of Neil Young and the post-rock instrumental sounds of Godspeed You Black Emperor! and Low, Lanterns on the Lake combine the brooding vocals of songwriter Hazel Wilde with textured instrumentation. The band's first full-length release, Gracious Tide, Take Me Home, arrived in 2011. While maintaining a distinctively dreamy, delicate sound over the course of the decade, their lusher third album, Beings, saw release in 2015. Rising socio-political tensions were reflected on Spook the Herd, issued in 2020.